Poland is currently facing a shortfall of 50,000 IT specialists, a figure that is set to rise to 100,000 in the next decade, according to a new report.
The number of offers posted on online job listings was 13% higher in the second quarter of the year compared with the first quarter, according to the report published by inhire.io, a platform matching IT specialists with technology companies.
Of these, roughly 25% were seeking Java Script programmers, 22% Java developers, and 15% specialists in Python, reports Puls Biznesu. According to Devire, a Polish employment agency, candidates often simultaneously take part in several recruitments processes, and receive three or four offers from different companies.
The shortage is in part driven by Polish IT talent being snapped up by foreign companies. According to the report, 48% of them have received at least one job offer in the past year from a firm located outside the country.
As more work became remote during the pandemic, demand for IT specialists has risen. As a result, the profession recorded the joint largest nominal year-on-year increase in wages among professions in Poland in February, with a rise of 503 zloty (€110) on average.
To plug the gap in its domestic market, Poland has sought to attract specialists from abroad. According to a report published in April, the country had become home to around 10% of ICT specialists from Belarus. A further two fifths of such workers in Belarus said they were also considering relocation.
The new report also estimates the shortfall of such jobs at 600,000 across the European Union as a whole. According to Daxx.com, a Dutch IT recruitment agency, the global shortage of IT specialists currently stands at around 40 million and is expected to reach 85.2 million by the end of the decade.
.Main image credit: Microbiz Mag/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
